this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Chronic Illness
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What's wrong with "I'd rather die than be disabled"? To me it looks a legitimate personal moral stance.
Congratulations, you're an ableist.
Edit just to give anyone who might actually give a shit a clue: if you replace disabled with any other marginalised group and your point becomes glaringly bigoted, it's also bigoted when you aim it at disabled people. It's really not that fucking complicated.
Disabled is a social status.
There are more disabilities than pretty much anyone can imagine. A disability can be anything from a foot defect, to partial blindness, to scoliosis.
A disabled life is not necessarily a life of suffering or an unhealthy life, you’re already stereotyping here. Ableism teaches people that disability is full of suffering and nothing else, and that therefore disabled lives are not worth living. This is the rationale the nazis used when genociding the disabled population.
Are you really saying you’d rather die then have a foot malformation, or rather die than being hard of hearing? Saying you’d rather die than being disabled talks more about the social status of a disabled person, than the disability itself, as there is so much diversity in disability.
It’s okay to think, “I’d rather die than having [x] disability”. Although you should never say that to someone with the disability because it amounts to saying “if I were like you I would kill myself”. But saying “I’d rather die than be disabled” is not okay, because you’re missing out on the nuance of disability and therefore commenting on the social status and not the disability itself.
I really disagree with your reasoning. I think that someone might simply consider any disability a reason not to live, and you are nobody to say that they missed the nuance of different disabilities, or that it's ridiculous to think you'd rather die than being hard of hearing (which is what I think you implied). I disagree with the blanket statement, but I think your arguments are invalid both from the theoretical standpoint than from the practical one (when x becomes a list of 100 items you might as well use a blanket statement).
You’re aware that disability can literally mean being slightly nearsighted right? Or losing your sense of smell? Or having ADHD? Disability can also be temporary, would you kill yourself because you broke your wrist?
Unless you are a radical eugenicist. It’s absurd to say you would kill yourself for all of these as a blanket statement. Especially considering the fact no one has the cerebral capacity to be aware of every single disability.
And anyways, it’s very questionable to come in here and say things like this. This community is a safe space and support group for chronically ill people, so coming here and saying “oh hi, if I was like you I’d kill myself” is just incredibly insensitive and inappropriate.
I am aware, and I am also aware that people are free to think what they want for themselves and I am nobody to judge them. You might think it's ridiculous, but theirs is the only life affected by this, so they are well within their rights to have all the opinions they have on their life.
Not being aware of any disability is true, but their statement is relative to what they are aware of, not a scientific statement (since it's a personal opinion), and as I said, you can also approximate to the blanket statement rather than mentioning 100 conditions.
I agree it might be insensitive to bring it up, but neither me nor the person you answered to brought it up, we merely answered to a comment that mentioned this expression.